+5
I haven't caught up here yet (so please forgive the interruption) - I'm knee deep in the gun control debate a few pages back and felt like interjecting an anecdote; a memory that these debates brought up in me from my freshman year in college: Expository Writing class..
The professor played a little trick on us - we got to choose from a list of controversial issues to write an essay on, defending our position.
I chose gun control. When the professor called on me to ask why I chose that topic I began to tell him my opinions on the issue.
After I told him why gun's were so bad, unnecessary, responsible for accidental deaths, how no one needs military grade weapons for hunting, etc., he responded...
"NOW! I want 10 pages, double spaced, CONVINCING me why I should and ought buy and own as many guns as I want, of any type that I choose, with as much ammunition as I desire and why the 2nd amendment is the greatest right ever established in our Constitution. YOUR job is to show me how and why guns are the greatest thing on earth and why EVERYONE should own, have or hoard as many as possible even though that is the farthest thing from your own personal beliefs as you've expressed them! Got it?"
My jaw was on the floor. I stammered, "B-but, I can't..."
"Oh yes you can, young man, and yes you WILL!" he shouted, "For that is the very nature and function of the assignment. And it's due on Monday, so as with all assignments in this class, you must complete them to pass!"
Then he went through the class asking each student why they chose their topic (of course, because they had an opinion on it) and then told them their job was to take an opposing opinion to the one they personally held and convince him of the opposite.
The reasons for such an exercise should be kind of obvious - first to make us better, more analytical, more objective writers, but also to force us to research (you kind of have to if you're going to come up with data to convince someone else of something you don't believe in yourself), to base arguments on facts rather than on personal emotions, and to open your mind to other points of view.
It really helps you understand why you believe the things you do, to examine your own beliefs (where they are valid and where they are weak) and the same for the views you disagree with.
Reading some of the debates here reminded me of this.
Last edited by Captain Steel; 08-19-19 at 11:32 PM.